"Justice Ming Chin by the numbers"

Cal Supreme Court StatMaster Kirk Jenkins is back with a new series of monthly columns: analytics-driven profiles of each Supreme (by seniority). Today's DJ features Justice Ming Chin by the numbers. What does an "analytics-driven profile" look like? Well, it starts out like this:

• Justice Chin has voted in 937 civil cases and 1,289 criminal, quasi-criminal, juvenile, disciplinary and mental health cases. He has written majority opinions in 129 civil cases -- 13.77 percent of the total number of cases he has participated in. His busiest year was 1997, when he wrote 10 majority opinions. His lightest year -- including his partial year in 1996 -- was 2014, when he wrote only one majority. Justice Chin has written 223 majority opinions in criminal cases, or 17.3 percent of the total. His busiest year was 2002, when he wrote 16 majority opinions in criminal cases. His lightest years -- leaving aside his partial years in 1996 and 2019 -- were 1998 and 2017, when he wrote majority opinions in five criminal cases.

And it ends like this:

• The data shows that throughout his 23-year career, Justice Chin has been one of the votes to watch on the California Supreme Court: Regardless of whether the ultimate outcome was arguably "conservative" or "liberal," Justice Chin is nearly always with the majority. Justice Chin appears, at least in civil cases, to file dissenting opinions strategically, when flipping a single vote will reverse the result of the case. Throughout his tenure, Justice Chin has voted fairly consistently with his conservative colleagues.